Pierre Hermé's Raspberry Lemon Ligurian Olive Oil Cake!
That's a mouthful.
This recipe was so easy, I could not believe that it was from Pierre Hermé, the famous Parisian baker.
His recipes are pretty intense on the difficulty scale, a 10. His shops in Paris are stunning, like little jewel boutiques with lines always waiting to get in.
I like plain and simple cakes with not much fuss, so when I saw this recipe on Martha's site, I did a double take. Hey, I can do that, and I LOVE my olive oil from Liguria (where pesto is from in Genoa).
This is the perfect summer cake, bright and sunny with the lemon flavors being the star, and I am not ready to give into fall yet. I am sure you can still find raspberries at the market, I was able to find them without a problem.
The raspberries make it just a little more special than your typical lemon cake.
The original recipe calls for a meringue on the top, but I was too scared to put my cake under the broiler, my luck, it would burn, so I opted for a lemon sugar icing which was just perfect!
Pierre Hermé's Ligurian Olive Oil Cake w/ Lemons & Raspberries: (adapted from Martha Stewart)
7 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, plus more, room temperature, for pan
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for pan
1 1/2 teaspoons double-acting baking powder
1 cup granulated sugar
Zest of 2 lemons
4 large eggs, room temperature
3 tablespoons milk, room temperature
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice (about 1/2 lemon)
2/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 pint fresh raspberries
Butter a 10-inch round cake or springform pan, dust with flour, and tap out any excess.
In a large bowl, sift flour and baking powder; set aside.
Place sugar and lemon zest in the bowl of an electric mixer; rub the ingredients together between your fingers until the sugar is moist, grainy, and has absorbed as much of the zest as possible. Return bowl to mixer.
Using the whisk attachment, beat in eggs on medium high until the mixture is pale and thick, about 3 minutes.
With the mixer on lowest speed, beat in milk. Add reserved flour mixture; beat until incorporated. Add lemon juice, melted butter, and olive oil; beat until blended.
Pour about one third of the batter into the prepared pan; there should be just enough batter to form a thin, even layer. Arrange the raspberries on top of the batter. Pour the remaining batter over the raspberries, and use a rubber spatula to gently spread batter so that it runs down between the berries and just covers them (you'll have a very thin top layer of batter).
Bake cake until it's golden and pulling away from the sides of the pan, and a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean, about 35 minutes.
Let cool for about 15 minutes before removing the cake ring.
Make the icing:
1 cup confectioners sugar
1 1/2 tbsp whole milk
1-2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
Whisk the incing ingredients with a fork until it is a nice consistency.
With an icing spatula, spread the icing over the center of the cake and let it drip down the sides. Dot with some raspberries and let completely cool.
Serve at room temperature.
Lovely!
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